7 Facts about Social Media and The Rise of Smartphones

Think about all the moments in your down time when you have to time yourself. How do you spend it?

Does it involve, almost subconsciously, pulling out your phone and scrolling through social media? You’re not alone. Every where you turn, whether it’s ogling other drivers staring down during traffic jams, or a disinterested couple at an expensive restaurant, people are attached to their smartphones and just can’t let go.

So much so, in fact, that “this summer, for the first time, we are getting more searches on mobile devices than on desktop.”

Google, naturally, is taking advantage of this upward trend, creating incentives for mobile users such as Google Now, “which notifies users with new flight information like a flight delay before they even type it in the box.”

Because what else are you doing when you’re waiting for your flight? You’re looking at your phone to pass the time. That’s why Google’s worth nearly $365 billion, because they have the perspective to know where a person is most likely to be looking at their phone and how that experience could be improved.

It’s no secret that mobiles are steadily becoming more relied upon than desktops, which includes traditional desktop computers, laptops, and even tablets, both by social media users and advertisers.

Our attention spans are shrinking, our attachment to our phones are growing, and advertisers are beginning to notice, thus why “28% of marketers have reduced their advertising budget to fund more digital marketing”.

Check out these 7 stats that showcase how hooked we are to our phones:

1. “According to StatCounter, 37% of website visits in 2015 were generated by mobile web browsers. At the end of 2015 the most popular browser was Chrome Mobile with 36.93% market share. UC Browser came second with 18.6% market share while Safari was third with 17.9%…Safari was leading in Australia, Japan, USA, France and UK, while Chrome Mobile had the largest share in India, Nigeria, Germany, Italy and Spain.”

2. “The latest data shows that we are now well past the tipping point. Mobile digital media time in the US is now significantly higher at 51% compared to desktop (42%).

3. With the rise of mobile, video is in high demand because people love visual storytelling. Content will need to be produced more quickly and efficiently which has big implications for the traditional agency/brand relationship.

Want proof of this? Samsung Mobile is one of the greatest contributors to this, showcasing short videos in nearly every one of their Facebook posts. If you have the budget for it, it’s highly suggested you invest in videos.

You don’t even have to hire actors. It can be as simple as a product demonstration or something creative in stop-motion.

4. An eye tracking study conducted by IPG Media Labs showed that consumers, “look at native ads 53% more frequently than banners”, and are also “more likely to share a native ad (32%) than a banner ad (19%).

Do you want to know how unlikely it is someone will click on your banner ad? You’re more likely to survive a plane crash or win the lottery, before you click on a banner ad.

5. “The latest data from Yahoo’s Flurry analytics shows that 90% of consumer’s mobile time is spent in app. This is a key insight as companies decide whether to develop mobile apps or create mobile device specific apps.”

6. “The worldwide mobile payment revenue in 2015 was 450 billion U.S. dollars and is expected to surpass 1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2019. In the third quarter of 2015, mobile e-commerce spending in the United States amounted to 11.4 billion U.S. dollars.”

7. “Mobile payments are early today, but will soon skyrocket. In late 2013, just 6% of U.S. adults said they had made a payment in a store by scanning or tapping their smartphone at a payment terminal. It will go up to 8% this year. Nearly 15% of Starbucks customers already pay with their phones. And, 60% of consumers use their smartphones to pay because of loyalty benefits.”